


As I Lay Here (One-shot)

by RestlessCancer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Pain, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RestlessCancer/pseuds/RestlessCancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Severus always meant to say to Harry</p>
            </blockquote>





	As I Lay Here (One-shot)

Severus Snape lie on his back, his bloody neck turned at what would ordinarily be an uncomfortable angle, but feels normal to a dying man. He gasps and shudders, trying to slow his breath and the beating of his heart. The boy is coming and he is not going to miss his last chance. 

"Professor!" Harry shouts, kneeling by Snape's side, putting pressure on his torn up neck. 

The child has tears in his eyes- he loves too much and holds nothing back. But how, after all these years, can this boy still hold any regard or positive feeling for his rough-edged, biting professor?

"You have your mother's eyes..." Severus remarks, his face expressing his love and anguish for the first time since his beloved Lily had died.

"What...?" Harry murmurs, astonished at his Professor's reaction.

"I don't hate you." Severus gasps, lolling his towards the right to see the boy better. "Your... father... hated me... so I hated him- hated... him for stealing your mother from me..."

"Professor, I don't understand." Harry responds, tears streaming down his face.

"Severus... call me... Sev...rus... I loved you... like my own... You'll see..." Snape explains, pulling out a vile and catching his own tears in it.

"Professor... I mean, Severus, you can't die. You'll be fine..." Harry urges, taking a ripped section of his shirt and pulling it the rest of the way off.

"Naive little boy... You care too much... take the tears and look in my memories... You're answers are there..." Snape says, smiling weakly. "James was a decent man, but I was jealous... He had you and your mother... I wanted to be your father..."

Harry is speechless as he tries to maintain pressure and get the torn fabric to Severus's neck. Tears are running like waterfalls from a broken faucet down his face.

"I can't be saved... Not physically, but you... you saved my heart... Without you, I never would have loved again... My Lily's baby boy..." Severus admits, taking Harry's hands from his throat and kissing the blood-stained palms before pressing the vile of tears into them. "Make your Mother proud... You've already made me proud..."

Snape's eyes close and roll back as his heart gives out, his lungs refusing to function without its support. Harry sobs as he kisses Snape's cheek, wiping his tears as he turns to Ron, finding his best friend looking confused and almost as sad.

"I've got to get to Dumbledore's office." Harry tells him, getting to his feet and corking the little vile with one of his thumbs.

"Right." Ron says, following Harry as his best friend dashes back towards the castle.

After running until his breath seems permanently gone, Harry makes it up to Dumbledore's office and takes the pensieve over to step in front of Dumbledore's desk. He pours the tears in and plunges his head in.

A young Severus Snape sits beneath a gigantic tree with Harry's mother, Lily, as a young girl.

_"Severus, I feel different around you..." Lily says, catching a floating daisy in her hand as she watches the water of the lake in front of them._

_"I feel different around you too..." Severus admits. "Is it a bad different?"_

_"No... I feel like I'm not a freak like my sister says I am..." She confesses, smiling shyly as the black hair and pale-skinned boy beside her._

_"That's because you're not a freak... You're special- magical." Severus replies, his heart racing._

_"So are you!" Lily says, kissing his cheek and turning away quickly as she questions her action._

_"Can... May I kiss your cheek?" Severus asks shyly._

_"Only if you mean it..." Lily answers._

_"I mean it..." Severus breathes and leans in to kiss her cheek, finding her turning so that he kisses her lips. "I liked that..."_

_"I did too..." Lily answers, a rosy blush alighting her face._

Suddenly the scene changes and flashes through numerous instances of James Potter raising hell for Severus Snape- everything from book tipping to name-calling to shoving- all while Lily sits back, looking horrified, but afraid to move. Then the scene shows Lily interjecting in the court yard as James is harassing Severus once again, telling her boyfriend how enough is enough and hugging the boy who had been her best friend and confidant from before they ever went to Hogwarts. The scene changes again, showing an empty and dark corridor with only Lily and Severus, graduates from Hogwarts.

_"Severus, I'm getting back together with James..." Lily says, looking anguished as she confesses this to the man she had lost her virginity to only days before._

_"What..." Severus questions, looking lost and far more pained than the broken-looking angel before him._

_"My parents... They refuse to see what I see in you and James... well they want me to marry him... They've been talking to his parents about arrangements all this time because they never knew James and I had split and... Well, I think... I think I'm pregnant, Severus... I haven't been feeling well...." Lily explains, tears rolling down her face as she takes off the ring with the heart-shaped emerald set in white gold and hands it back to him._

_"Lily...Please..." Severus pleads, not knowing what else to say as his eyes burn and spill over. "I love you... I have ever since we met..."_

_"I know, Severus... I've always loved you too, but I have learned to love James and... he's who my parents love... Even my sister feels something less than hate towards him..." Lily responds, nearly sobbing now._

_"But... the baby... he's mine..." Severus points out. "You can't hide that from James... He'll see me in the baby..."_

_"James will never notice. I know he won't." Lily disagrees. "I have to go... James is looking for me to go see my parents."_

_"Lily, please, I love you... Doesn't that mean anything?" Severus questions, grabbing one of her hands as she turns away._

_"It does, but... I love James now... I'm sorry!" Lily sobs, turning her face away._

_Severus gently forces her to face him and kisses her passionately._

_"I love you. I will never stop loving you." Severus murmurs before letting her slip away with the ring still clutched in one hand._

Scenes flash in passing, lonely and dark nights of staring at pictures of Severus and Lily and all their years together- the few ultra sound pictures of baby Harry she had sent him tucked carefully in a secret pocket of the photo album. Next, scenes play of Dumbledore talking to Severus of the Dark Lord's intentions and the need for Severus to be a spy among the Death Eaters.

_A scene settles with clarity beyond what should be possible as Snape dashes into Lily and James house, past James body until he comes to Harry's room where baby Harry is bawling in his crib and Lily is lying dead, face-down on the floor. Severus dashes to his beloved, cradling her in his arms as he sobs his anguish out while rocking her limp, perfect body back and forth until he comes to his senses, hearing other Death eaters in the streets below. He gathers himself and wraps baby Harry in a soft blanket and soothes him, bouncing him gently in his arms and kissing his forehead until the little one goes silent, reaching his tiny hands up and clinging to Snape's robes._

_"Sh, Harry, I've got you... Daddy's got you." Snape soothes, apparating to the school grounds and running up to the Headmaster's office with tears still pouring like hot wax daggers down his face._

_"Severus! He's alive?!" Dumbledore calls, approaching the crying Potions Master with the quivering baby._

_"Yes. He's the only one. It's all true, Albus. The prophecy of the Boy Who Lived is coming to pass." Severus sniffles._

_"We have to hide the child. We have to leave him in the care of Lily's sister, Petunia." Dumbledore urges. "He's not safe in the world of magic- not now."_

_Severus whips out his wand and summons his patronus, a doe, that stands between him and Dumbledore._

_"Severus!" Dumbledore gasps._

_"I cannot lose him." Severus explains._

_"He's not yours to lose."_

_"He is."_

_"After all this time?"_

_"Always."_

_"Even so, the child cannot stay with you. You're a Death Eater, Severus. If the prophecy is true, he cannot die."_

The scene fades out and phases back into to show the two, without Harry at any age, back in the office. The argument ensues- Severus expressing his outrage that Dumbledore "raised the boy for slaughter." Severus conjures his patronus once more to remind Dumbledore of his stake in all of this.

_"Even now?" Dumbledore questions._

_"As I said before, always. You're wise, Albus, but you're decisions horrify me. You plan to send this child to die the same way he nearly died before." Severus answers._

_"Yes and when the time comes, you will play your part. You will play the ever faithful pet to Voldemort and you will kill me. It must be you, Severus."  Dumbledore confirms, petting Fawkes as he speaks._

The scene phases out and the pensieve goes blank as Harry pulls his head out. Harry stares at the floor, rage and hurt and anguish building up and threatening to explode inside of him. Snape... Snape is his real father...

He was and Harry had to watch him die.


End file.
